On the Road to Find Out

Well, it’s not really Black Death but it’s almost there. I just felt like I needed to keep the grizzly stories coming, and guess what, whenever I’m checking the news I keep finding more and more of them.

This is the story that the bubonic plague has come to Peru, killing one and up to 30 infected. I thought the plague had long died out, but it turns out not. The disease, which is caused by fleas infecting rodents which then pass on the disease through their saliva, was last seen in Peru in 1994 when it left 35 people dead. You would hope this means that they are more prepared this time.

The full story can be read in the Latin American Herald Tribune here.

Hey, just wanted to publish this photo of yesterday’s harvest:

One of the best things about this place is the amount of fruit and herbs growing in the garden. Every couple of days I am able to get a punnet of fruit together like this one as well as plenty of herbs. In the basket on this occasion were:

• Blackberries
• Strawberries
• Raspberries
• Yellow raspberries
• Kumquats

And sitting right next to them are arugula and there is some parsley, basil and chives knocking about there somewhere too I believe.

In what’s becoming something of a regular feature I am taking a look at another horrendous murder case in Brazil. This time it is the turn of Bruno Fernandes de Souza (generally shortened to Bruno Souza) who has now been charged for the murder of his new baby’s mother, Eliza Silva Samudio. She had slept with Bruno Souza at an orgy over a year ago. Amongst protestations from Bruno and his family she decided to have the child. Bruno had been married to another woman during this whole episode. Three months after the baby was born Eliza Samudio disappeared and slowly the story has begun to unravel that she was kidnapped by Bruno and his family, including his wife, and taken to their home near Belo Horizonte. Claims are that she was strangled to death, then chopped up and fed to the dogs. Police still have found no trace of the body yet are certain of the circumstances of the case, as noted in AFP’s report of the case.

“Forensic police will prove that Eliza is dead,” the officer in charge of the investigation, Edson Moreira, said. He added that inquiries were continuing to bolster evidence and attempt to find the body. Seven other people, including an ex-policeman suspected of carrying out the premeditated murder on Souza’s orders, have also been charged. Souza’s wife was among them.

This has been one of the most shocking news stories in Brazil for quite a while. Mainly due to the fact that Bruno Souza was a huge public figure thanks to being the number one for Flamengo, a team that won the Brazilian championship as recently as 2009. He had also at times been the captain of the side, one of the most heavily-supported teams in Brazil. It would be the equivalent of Peter Cech or Edwin Van Der Sar getting arrested for murder if it happened in England!

My house sitting assignment has finally begun proper. The little dog-rat has been taken by one of the owner’s friends, which leaves me with the job of looking after just Neil the Alsatian and the plants, both pictured here:

Yesterday was my first day of watering the plants. It took about 2 hours. I think this is going to have to improve slightly. Problem is that it’s just too hot here, everything needs a lot of water every day just to survive.

One of the great things about staying at this place is the room I’m staying. It was originally the cinema room but they’ve taken the projector away – I can only presume they think I’ll destroy it with my fat hands. Still, it’s probably the biggest room I’ve ever stayed in and happens to be pretty damn blissful in the evening when I can get the balcony open, as per this here picture:

Now I just want one more picture of Neil, a dog that is so unbelievably friendly that when you get near him he jumps on you, smashing your ribs with his huge paws while pretending to bite your hands. I can probably understand why some people are a bit scared of him. He is really though one of the softest dogs I’ve come across.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Uruguay’s Jose Mujica on Friday (30th July) signed cooperation agreements on defence, science, technology, energy, river transportation and fishing with the hope of accelerating political and economic integration between these two neighbouring countries.

The underlying sentiment of the agreement was the call for South America to become a peaceful zone on the whole. This is echoed by this statement by Lula:

“Within the framework of Unasur (Union of South American Nations) we hope to deepen our mutual understanding in order to create a common vision of defense and security for the region, consolidating South America as a zone of peace and democracy.”

They failed to mention any crises that could be causing the lack of peace in the area, although the recent disputes between Colombia and Venezuela were surely on people’s minds. It is felt that the ease of relations between these two countries, especially in border towns such as Rivera and Santana, where people can come and go between the two countries effortlessly, will become a model for other countries in South America to follow.

More info:
Brazil, Uruguay see South America as Peace Zone (Latin American Herald Tribune)

Okay, this is slightly off the beaten track but I just couldn’t believe this story when I first saw it. Wallace Souza, was the presenter of Canal Livre, the normal police chase-style program, which was aired in the Amazonas in Brazil. In 2009 he had to step down from the program over allegations that he had ‘arranged’ for a series of killings in order to improve ratings. The accusations came from the fact that his TV crew was also the first to any murders, often getting there as the police arrived. The final straw came when police saw footage of a drug dealier burning in the woods on the show, with the TV crew there long before the police turned up. He was soon arrested for hiring hitmen to kill five people.

Wallace Souza died on Tuesday (27th July) of liver failure so we will never get to know if he was willing to admit to the offences. We can be sure though that this only adds to the notion that Brazil is one corrupt country. Souza was an ex-police officer who left the force very hastily in 1987. There are no official records why he left but I’m guessing he wasn’t on his best behaviour. He later then turned up as a state deputy in Amazonas in 1998 where he continued until his arrest in 2009 despite a ridiculous amount of allegations for drug trafficking and his additional role as TV presenter. His son is also currently in prison facing charges of homicide, possession of firearms and drug trafficking. Many detectives and ex-police officers have already stepped forward to say that they were contacted by Souza to carry out ‘hits.’

There’s more about Wallace Souza at these sites:
‘Murders for ratings’ Brazil TV host dies in hospital
Murder suspect TV host dies in hospital

Since I returned from Brazil I have constantly been looking for ways to live without having too many overheads, figuring the paltry amounts I get for web designs would not spread too far. One of the most appealing ways of achieving this has been the idea of house-sitting. I started out with the Mind My House website after seeing a huge selection of available houses in France, Spain, Portugal and grumpy, old England, but those old-aged pensioners are just too damn reliable apparently. Well, that is until they forget whether they fed the dog or when they last took their medication, or that they’ve left the house without the keys. Anyway, I was more than happy then to find that my good friend Couchsurfing came up trumps when a couple advertised they were looking for house sitters on one of the groups. I’m obviously far more reliable than all the other unreliable, cheap-skate, new age hippies on the site!

That is why I am now in Porto. I couldn’t tell you how hot it is but every time I stretch to reach another key on this keyboard I break out into a sweat, have to drink a glass of water, towel myself down and then take a shower (I started this post yesterday!) Rain would be more than welcome. Not least because the hills are quite literally on fire. Eucalyptus trees are unfortunately prone to exploding when they get a bit hot, it’s all that oil they’ve got in them, and that means that the forest fires are smothering the horizon in grey at the moment. When the sun dropped last night and the wind changed direction we all went to sleep with the smell of sickly sweet burnt wood in our nostrils.

The particulars of this house sitting assignment are to look after an alsatian and a little rat/cat/dog (I think it’s the last of these), Neil and Lula respectively, as well as the myriad of plants, herbs and vegetation dotted around the house and garden. I’m already used to picking fresh berries for breakfast and herbs and salad for my lunch and dinner.

I’m off to explore the city, which on the map seems very small indeed. As with much of Portugal it’s very historical with a real lack of modern franchises (McDonald’s, Starbucks, Subway, etc.,) so they’re obviously trying to preserve it. On the agenda is to try the local port, seeing this is the only place where the real stuff comes from.

Sounds and Colours, as mentioned in a previous post, is a website I have been working on for the last couple of months. It seems like now is the time to get the word out on this thing! The site features interviews, mixtapes, news and reviews of all aspects of South American music and culture. At the moment the focus is Brazil, with a strong bias towards everything musical. In August we will be looking at Argentina.

The basic idea is to create a site about South America in a way that’s not been done for. The majority of sites that are about South American music in particular tend to categorise it as ‘world music’ or ‘latin american music’. These tags are just too broad to ever really embrace all the amazing styles of music from this region. The same also applies to culture with Brazil largely described as ‘carnival’ country, Argentina as the home of ‘tango’ and Peru as the place to visit ‘macchu picchu.’ There is just so much more going on and we are hoping to get the word out as much as possible! Keep on eye on this blog as well obviously as the Sounds and Colours site for the latest on this new project.

Sounds and Colours

I have to apologise for the lack of updates here, it’s not because I’ve forgotten about this blog, it’s just that life has taken over a little slightly. Since returning from South American I have spent a week in Barcelona, a month in London and the rest of the time in Uttoxeter, a small market town in the center of England. I’ve tried to continue the travelling way of life, making sure I don’t tie myself down again, sleeping on friend’s couches, not worrying about money and generally being very laissez-faire about everything. Only problem is that the money flow has suffered. It took a couple of months before people realised I was back in England and started offering me work. By which point I had decided to go to London for a month. Various celebrations were happening there that involved Brazil and South America in general, and I had begun work on a website, called Sounds and Colours (which I will talk about in more detail on the next post), which is ostensibly a magazine about South American music and culture.

Going to London was the perfect opportunity to turn this website into a viable entity, or even, dare I say it, a profitable one, although this is a long way off. Now, the magazine has a marketing manager (my friend Rick), a media pack (already hideously out-of-date), a few hundred twitter followers, over 100 visitors a day and has generally got itself out into the ether in a way that didn’t seem possible when I came up with the idea in my bedroom a couple of months ago. The site now has itself a head of steam, and I’ve slowly come to terms with how to market and how to add content without wasting my days. Which is why I am now thinking about this blog again.

Over the next few weeks I will be staying in Porto. I managed to find someone who needed a dog sitter, so off I will go. I hope to post some interesting tidbits about Porto, as well as a few about London and Barcelona that are still unfortunately laying dormant in my notebook. I will also be posting far more articles about music and culture, interesting stuff that there isn’t room for on Sounds and Colours but which is obviously of the highest culture.

God, I hope I didn’t sound all formal and straight-ahead there – it was certainly very cathartic writing all that though.

There’s a problem when any journey ends. Namely ‘when does the next one begin?’ It seems that generally it doesn’t. Reality has to be faced after any long journey. After all, maybe they’re only ‘gap year’s’ or ‘once in a lifetime’ experience anyway. Shiny shoes need to be applied to feet, as does a shiny new hairless face as the gripping urge to quell debts or just to get back to a ‘normal’ existence becomes too much to bear.

The urge has yet to reach my door. The idea of being able to maintain the travelling lifestyle seems to much of an option. But what is this travelling lifestyle? I think all I really mean is to be able to lead a life that is not stuck in any one place. This means working via the laptop (meaning not-being restricted to any one location) while also pursuing opportunities that involve the possibility of working abroad.

This is why I currently find myself in Barcelona. The first 7-8 weeks since I returned have been a mixture of catching up with friends and of working out new possibilities. Any idea of being able to make money from writing means that you need to be an expert in an area. Seeing as I completely fell in love with Brazilian music this seems to be the way I’m heading – maybe I should mention more how that is unfolding in another post.

My trip to Barcelona is happening because PopMatters have asked me to write about the Primavera Sound festival (I say asked when perhaps relented to my constant badgering would be a better way of putting it!) This means writing for a well-read music magazine as well as the opportunity to make contacts, enjoy Barca, and above all else, take a dip in the ocean.

In news of writing going online I did just notice that A Different League have put up my article on the World Cup in 1930. It can be found here:
World Cup Retrospect – Uruguay 30 (A Different League)